From highly complex computer systems involving vast arrays of information technology to personal computer systems involving only a single user, all computer systems share at least two common needs—Maintenance and repair. Indeed, there exists on the market today, many software tools for analyzing computer systems and diagnosing computer related problems. Some software solutions have been configured to alert a user of potential problems so that a user may proactively address system issues before they mature into full-blown problems. Other solutions allow users to test different configuration scenarios before implementation to ferret out any potential problems. In all cases, software tools allow users to monitor and effect changes to their systems on a continuous or ad hoc basis to create more efficient and robust systems.
In today's computing systems, software solutions may not fully address all aspects of system maintenance. For example, environmental factors, in some cases, may not be ascertainable using conventional software. Environmental factors are those factors such as temperature, heat, shock, etc. which are part of the physical environment in which a system of interest resides. Thus, an electrostatic discharge (ESD) event, in one example, may cause data corruption in a computer system that in turn, may cause the system to fail. In diagnosing the ESD induced failure of the system, a technician may, as a first step, choose to reboot the computer system, which, in this example, might be sufficient to restore that system to operation. However, the root cause of the failure may remain unknown since the solution (i.e. reboot) may not address whether an ESD event has occurred or will recur.
In some instances, a single physical event like an ESD event may be remedied by a simple reboot such as in the preceding example. If no further ESD events subsequently occur, then no other remedy may be required. In other instances, however, a recurring problem, like a recurring ESD event, may present further difficulties. For example, where a computer system is subject to recurring failure due to ESD events caused whenever the system is touched by IT personnel, a software analysis tool may not yield sufficient information for a technician to determine whether the recurring failure is due to an environmental factor. In the previous example, a single reboot after a single ESD event was sufficient to cure the problem. However, in this example, a reboot would only temporarily remedy an immediate failure of the system without addressing the underlying root cause. Diagnosing the problem may be further exacerbated where the system is removed from service and transported to another location for examination. In that case, the physical circumstances in which the system was operating may be difficult or impossible to recreate because an accompanying environmental factor may no longer be present. Thus, operational failures of computer systems deployed in data centers, closets, bunkers, and other diverse environments often have challenging root-cause issues.
Therefore, apparatuses and systems for monitoring environmental factors in a computer system are presented herein.